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Pre-Release Fire Emblem Engage — Pre-release Discussion Thread

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To be fair, the same could be said about Three Houses first trailer.

More generally, if there's something to learn about the whole TH pre-release and launch cycle, it is that 1st impressions can be very deceiving. Opinion only turned around on TH through leaks and launch.
I wasn't very hooked into the discourse around the first trailer for Three Houses, but my partner and I were immediately excited by it: it set up the world, the basic philosophical conflicts, established Edelgard and what she was doing and why, and gave us ideas about the tone the story would have. Everything we needed was right there

Engage's first trailer, if judged on the same criteria, is focused on establishing elements for why this game's story is more about uplifting the past than it is establishing a new setting, which in comparison is very unexciting

Well it was suppose to release around the 30th anniversary as a celebration title but covid happened so it makes sense to "summon heroes". Also outside of the 2 warrior games, recent endeavors, FE does not do spinoffs (TMS is technically a new IP), all games are mainline, even remakes.

Well it be written as 3H? Idk, maybe/maybe not, we don't have enough to go on (curious of the staff on this project). At the very least its a holdover until, if rumors are true, FE4 comes around the corner.
You would consider Fire Emblem Heroes a mainline game, then? Because it's giving me a lot of those vibes

And a less-compelling game being followed up with a remake, however well-written, just isn't as fun or exciting to me as a new game with a focus on interesting storytelling and character relationships
 
I wasn't very hooked into the discourse around the first trailer for Three Houses, but my partner and I were immediately excited by it: it set up the world, the basic philosophical conflicts, established Edelgard and what she was doing and why, and gave us ideas about the tone the story would have. Everything we needed was right there

Engage's first trailer, if judged on the same criteria, is focused on establishing elements for why this game's story is more about uplifting the past than it is establishing a new setting, which in comparison is very unexciting


You would consider Fire Emblem Heroes a mainline game, then? Because it's giving me a lot of those vibes

And a less-compelling game being followed up with a remake, however well-written, just isn't as fun or exciting to me as a new game with a focus on interesting storytelling and character relationships
Heroes is a spin-off for mobile. It's just that Engage is the first mainline entry that features any sort of legacy character interaction that isn't DLC or amiibo-based or otherwise not canon to the story.

And I have zero doubt that Engage in general will be better written than Heroes. But regardless, the rings are just a very easy, obvious thing to promote in the debut trailer. This game isn't a gacha and the number of rings in the story probably doesn't exceed the twelve heroes in the trailer mural (barring villain rings of any sort).
 
You would consider Fire Emblem Heroes a mainline game, then? Because it's giving me a lot of those vibes

And a less-compelling game being followed up with a remake, however well-written, just isn't as fun or exciting to me as a new game with a focus on interesting storytelling and character relationships
Its not a numbered entry so by IS definition its not a mainline game.

Well the difference between Heroes and Engage is the role the previous characters have in the story. In Heroes, legends are in the forefront and in Engage their are akin to Stands from JoJo, Demons/Personas or "weapons" to assist the main characters.

Like I said before we still don't have enough information to say this will be a "less-compelling" game so until it we know more I will reserve my judgment on it.
 
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I think it will be decidedly different from FE Heroes if there are only the 12 returning lords and they actually have some significant presence in the story.

Personally I think it'll be a great opportunity to give some love to entries that aren't Shadow Dragon/Awakening/Fates.

I was initially put off by the leaks since it sounded suspiciously like a gacha, but this seems like, though it takes some certain cues from FEH, it's definitely gonna be its own new mainline game. I'm very excited!

The visuals are smooth as heck too
 
I could care less about the boring political machinations of made up countries, give me smacking around dragons and saving the world stories any day
While I am usually pretty down for politicking in made up countries, I've said before that I'm a bit tired of it, especially when its just the upteenth generic medieval Europe inspired setting like FE tends to have

Like, Three Hopes earlier this year was kinda all fantasy politicking and I found the plot of that game fairly boring overall. Diofield seems like an interesting game in general but the demo's story was boring in a similar way - I've just seen this sort of plot a lot and video games don't tend to do them well enough to overcome that.
 
While I am usually pretty down for politicking in made up countries, I've said before that I'm a bit tired of it, especially when its just the upteenth generic medieval Europe inspired setting like FE tends to have

Like, Three Hopes earlier this year was kinda all fantasy politicking and I found the plot of that game fairly boring overall. Diofield seems like an interesting game in general but the demo's story was boring in a similar way - I've just seen this sort of plot a lot and video games don't tend to do them well enough to overcome that.
Politics can be done well, but unless it's done VERY well I tend to get bored of it very easily, unless it brings in some fantasy-magic-ancient-evil-god/death-stones/macguffins/etc. to spice it up (see: FFTactics, parts of Three Houses, FF12, and so on). I know a lot of people dislike that and think it takes the focus away from the more realistic characters and makes it all about the "anime fantasy bullshit", but that's the kind of stuff I love. It's one reason why I didn't really connect with the Triangle Strategy plot, since it stayed pretty true to the straight politics and realism. So I would not be at all opposed to amping up the nonsense in this game.

I think it was Brandon Sanderson who said about the fantasy genre: "Fantasy can do any kind of plot and character story that any other genre can do, but we can do it AND have dragons." and that pretty much nails my thoughts, too.
 
Politics can be done well, but unless it's done VERY well I tend to get bored of it very easily, unless it brings in some fantasy-magic-ancient-evil-god/death-stones/macguffins/etc. to spice it up (see: FFTactics, parts of Three Houses, FF12, and so on). I know a lot of people dislike that and think it takes the focus away from the more realistic characters and makes it all about the "anime fantasy bullshit", but that's the kind of stuff I love. It's one reason why I didn't really connect with the Triangle Strategy plot, since it stayed pretty true to the straight politics and realism. So I would not be at all opposed to amping up the nonsense in this game.

I think it was Brandon Sanderson who said about the fantasy genre: "Fantasy can do any kind of plot and character story that any other genre can do, but we can do it AND have dragons." and that pretty much nails my thoughts, too.
That does sound like a Brando Sando quote (somewhat ironic, because I don't think he has dragons in any of his books, besides the unpublished Dragonsteel), and I definitely agree with it. Part of the reason fantasy has remained my favorite genre throughout most of my life

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Wait Cultivation's a dragon, right? Been a while since that book came out. Ok so one dragon

I think I was fine with Triangle Strategy, but maybe because I had already done that rodeo once this year I was pretty bored of Three Hopes like I mentioned. Which is kinda weird since I don't think I've read any fantasy politicking this year, so I'm not sure why I got tired of the concept in the interim. But for whatever reason, I'm currently much more down for even standard anime nonsense than another GoT/ASoIF-alike.
 
I suppose it bears mentioning that I find the Ogre Battle balance more or less ideal (in case you couldn't guess)

Equal parts "This is very serious geopolitical stuff with a focus on colonialism, generational violence, and the genocides we prefer to ignore" and "Hell is real and there are ogres coming out of it"
 
Color me the opposite of this thread, I suppose. Give me all of the fantasy politicking.
It's not that I want none of it! I rather like some politics, especially if it's well done. I just tend to like when it's mixed with a lot of fantasy stuff as well, as I think they can actually enhance each other very well rather than detract. What starts to bore me is when the politicking is pretty much all it ends up being and it never goes deeper into the fantasy than that.

Case in point:
I fucking LOVED the later parts of the Golden Deer arc: There's a hidden magical tech civilization with ICBMs, and Nemesis is crygenically frozen along with the 10 elites, and you go destroy the tech city and their leader but then also have to clean up the mess and deal with Nemesis and the 10 Elites themselves in an epic final battle? HELL yes. Whereas in the Blue Lions arc: I really enjoyed the character work around Dimitri, and his story, but the actual plot where you basically just have some political stuff and then kill super-powered Edelgard and that's it was pretty disappointing to me. Maybe it's just because I played Golden Deer first, but to me, I really like Edelgard as a tragic 'gray' antagonist who has some good points but goes too far and ultimately has to be stopped, but she's not the REAL villain. And I feel like the Golden Deer plot almost feels more like a 'true ending' arc by not only dealing with Edelgard but also the villains behind the scenes and wraps up everything quite nicely.
 
I should also mention that Ogre Battle isn't exactly what you'd call a "perfect balance," even its fantasy parts have a heavy sense of the esoteric, and Three Houses was a lot closer to my ideal than most other Fire Emblem games, including with how it dealt with the fantastical elements of its history

FE7 and FE9 also hit the balance fairly nicely, though 8 and 10 much less so
 
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It's not that I want none of it! I rather like some politics, especially if it's well done. I just tend to like when it's mixed with a lot of fantasy stuff as well, as I think they can actually enhance each other very well rather than detract. What starts to bore me is when the politicking is pretty much all it ends up being and it never goes deeper into the fantasy than that.

Case in point:
I fucking LOVED the later parts of the Golden Deer arc: There's a hidden magical tech civilization with ICBMs, and Nemesis is crygenically frozen along with the 10 elites, and you go destroy the tech city and their leader but then also have to clean up the mess and deal with Nemesis and the 10 Elites themselves in an epic final battle? HELL yes. Whereas in the Blue Lions arc: I really enjoyed the character work around Dimitri, and his story, but the actual plot where you basically just have some political stuff and then kill super-powered Edelgard and that's it was pretty disappointing to me. Maybe it's just because I played Golden Deer first, but to me, I really like Edelgard as a tragic 'gray' antagonist who has some good points but goes too far and ultimately has to be stopped, but she's not the REAL villain. And I feel like the Golden Deer plot almost feels more like a 'true ending' arc by not only dealing with Edelgard but also the villains behind the scenes and wraps up everything quite nicely.
Golden Deer was weird because 95% of that route was literally copy-pasted from Silver Snow and only the last couple of battles and the story around them are actually different in content.
 
It's not that I want none of it! I rather like some politics, especially if it's well done. I just tend to like when it's mixed with a lot of fantasy stuff as well, as I think they can actually enhance each other very well rather than detract. What starts to bore me is when the politicking is pretty much all it ends up being and it never goes deeper into the fantasy than that.

Case in point:
I fucking LOVED the later parts of the Golden Deer arc: There's a hidden magical tech civilization with ICBMs, and Nemesis is crygenically frozen along with the 10 elites, and you go destroy the tech city and their leader but then also have to clean up the mess and deal with Nemesis and the 10 Elites themselves in an epic final battle? HELL yes. Whereas in the Blue Lions arc: I really enjoyed the character work around Dimitri, and his story, but the actual plot where you basically just have some political stuff and then kill super-powered Edelgard and that's it was pretty disappointing to me. Maybe it's just because I played Golden Deer first, but to me, I really like Edelgard as a tragic 'gray' antagonist who has some good points but goes too far and ultimately has to be stopped, but she's not the REAL villain. And I feel like the Golden Deer plot almost feels more like a 'true ending' arc by not only dealing with Edelgard but also the villains behind the scenes and wraps up everything quite nicely.
Didn't mean to imply that I was the only person who does like it. Moreso saying that I value the politics of these games much higher than the actual fantasy elements. I don't really care about dragons or magic in Fire Emblem unless it serves a greater purpose, such as the crests. I can live without the fantasy, whereas my interest in a Fire Emblem story completely bottoms out if there isn't that political element involved. I eat that stuff up, and Three Houses/Hopes was at its best when it fully embraced that side of it's story in my opinion.

I'm not completely opposed to pure fantasy, especially in more gameplay-focused franchises like The Legend of Zelda, but I don't think Fire Emblem is the franchise for that. Can't really write off Engage's story yet given how little we know about it, but if the plot is nothing more than "summon guys to kill the evil dragon" then I'm only in for the gameplay.
 
Golden Deer was weird because 95% of that route was literally copy-pasted from Silver Snow and only the last couple of battles and the story around them are actually different in content.
Obviously depends on which one you play first, I suppose, but IMO it's the opposite - Silver Snow is mostly a copy-paste of Golden Deer. And I liked it MUCH less than Golden Deer; it's probably the worst route in the game by a long shot. It's like Golden Deer but without the cohesion and having a good Lord, plus a much worse ending.
 
Obviously depends on which one you play first, I suppose, but IMO it's the opposite - Silver Snow is mostly a copy-paste of Golden Deer. And I liked it MUCH less than Golden Deer; it's probably the worst route in the game by a long shot. It's like Golden Deer but without the cohesion and having a good Lord, plus a much worse ending.
I mean, Silver Snow was literally the first route the devs created. And I personally love Silver Snow. There's bias because it was my first route, but I loved the BE students in that route and Seteth is fantastic. I loved the flow and progression of the story and how the final battle is more a circumstance of tragedy than anything else.
 
I mean, Silver Snow was literally the first route the devs created. And I personally love Silver Snow. There's bias because it was my first route, but I loved the BE students in that route and Seteth is fantastic. I loved the flow and progression of the story and how the final battle is more a circumstance of tragedy than anything else.
It... was? I find that absolutely bizarre given how it plays out, and how much it lacks compared to the other routes IMO. You're right, though, there's a definite bias toward your first route that I think most players of Three Houses have - hence probably why I love Golden Deer so much :).

I could write a very long post about why I didn't like Silver Snow nearly as much as the other routes, but I'll save it since that's not really on topic here. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's a terrible route or anything - it still has some good things about it, it just didn't personally work very well for me. But most of the problems I have with it are in comparison to the other routes - so probably as a first route, it would work significantly better.
 
It... was? I find that absolutely bizarre given how it plays out, and how much it lacks compared to the other routes IMO. You're right, though, there's a definite bias toward your first route that I think most players of Three Houses have - hence probably why I love Golden Deer so much :).

I could write a very long post about why I didn't like Silver Snow nearly as much as the other routes, but I'll save it since that's not really on topic here. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's a terrible route or anything - it still has some good things about it, it just didn't personally work very well for me. But most of the problems I have with it are in comparison to the other routes - so probably as a first route, it would work significantly better.
It was! And without dragging this thread too off--topic, it makes sense when the initial core idea behind the game was a story where

the main lord betrays the player.

In that sense, the story of Silver Snow accomplished what it set out to do.
 
As a card-carrying Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest liker, I can of course show up for a game just for really strong gameplay systems

But a story where people are in opposition to each other because they have irreconcilable philosophical differences, or are on opposite ends of a conflict neither wants, or something with some meat... that's the stuff
 
Considering how little we know about the game thus far, making any judgement over this games story right now is massively premature. We know the basic premise but that's it.
 
I'm ready Nintendo, IS and Gust. I got my Divine Edition pre-ordered on the My Nintendo Store.

(I also have a second one pre-ordered on Amazon.de which as of now is more expensive, but surely will drop in price. If anyone is interested in it and had no luck getting an order in, just hit me up, maybe i can keep the second order and sell it (at not extra cost) to someone. Though this might only be interesting for germans as i don't know how expensive shipping would become otherwise.)
Oh does this picture of ratinga board confirm it is developed along aside Gust?
 
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Considering how little we know about the game thus far, making any judgement over this games story right now is massively premature. We know the basic premise but that's it.

Yeah. I really don't think we can judge this game's story purely based on those few seconds of dialogue and the ring-hero mechanics
 
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I think it's completely fair to take tonal and plot indicators from a trailer that's meant to convey exactly those things

There's still room for us to be surprised, but that's the impression they wanted to give with the game's reveal
 
I think it's completely fair to take tonal and plot indicators from a trailer that's meant to convey exactly those things

There's still room for us to be surprised, but that's the impression they wanted to give with the game's reveal
It is, but some fans do tend to judge way too much prematurely. I remember people swore up and down Three Houses was going to be another Fates-like mess based on only the debut trailer. And now there are people expecting the worst, bottom-tier story out of Engage when we don't have much beyond the most basic aspects of the premise.
 
And now there are people expecting the worst, bottom-tier story out of Engage when we don't have much beyond the most basic aspects of the premise.
tbf, the plot is essentially hinting at another "MC vs Dragon main antagonist" plot that FE commonly uses and has essentially happened for most of the franchise.
 
tbf, the plot is essentially hinting at another "MC vs Dragon main antagonist" plot that FE commonly uses and has essentially happened for most of the franchise.
Yes, but I generally take dragon antagonists as a given and I'm fine with that. Three Houses even subverted the concept a bit. I'm less concerned with Evil Dragon than everything on the road to fighting it.
 
Yes, but I generally take dragon antagonists as a given and I'm fine with that. Three Houses even subverted the concept a bit. I'm less concerned with Evil Dragon than everything on the road to fighting it.
Yeah, that's the thing. The main antagonist being an evil dragon doesn't really mean much, especially if they're more of a villain who doesn't show up until right near the end anyway (like, he's sealed away and doesn't break out until the very end, etc.), since that means that 99% of the plot will be dealing with the various nations/factions, probably some group of evil guys that want to unseal the dragon that also have a leader who's a main antagonist, and so on.
 
ngl this is more interesting to me then Three Houses because I wasn't a fan of playing a teacher in a high school who is teaching future fascists (or whatever Edelgard ended up being) and all the mechanics around that concept.

Then again my last FE was Awakening.
 
I'm only interested in Engage since it seems to be far more linear this time around with none of the route splits that FE has had post-Awakening (excluding SoV which can be excused).
 
ngl this is more interesting to me then Three Houses because I wasn't a fan of playing a teacher in a high school teaching future fascists or whatever Edelgard ended up being and all the mechanics around that concept.

Then again my last FE was Awakening.
Edelgard is just a nice little girl who loves throwing daggers as a sport.
 
Also I still hold that the Engage trailer is much worse than the Three Houses trailer, as a guy who was big into the 3H trailer from the jump

I think the little aspect of the trailer that gets me most is the cutscene where the hero and Marth both open up a door together

If this game tries to put Marth over, or tries to venerate him, it's going to be very, very silly
 
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If the leak is correct, and considering everything else about it has been true so we have no reason to assume it i's not 100% correct, then this game was originally planned to be an anniversary celebration game that unfortunately missed the mark for the original planned release, so I thiiink that the lighter simpler 'traditional Fire Emblem' story might be by design to serve that scenario, along with Marth possibly getting bolstered due to being The Iconic First Lord and yadda yadda.
And that's... fine I think? As long as the new characters are funny and endearing and the maps are fun I can swallow all the nostalgiawank they wanna throw at us.
 
Reminder that the Edelgard discourse is the most stupid and worthless topic of discussion ever created, pls don't start.
Alear, save us from Edelgard Discourse.

2cVw.gif
 
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Nintendo just release the second trailer already I have so many questions and I'm very very confused at everything. Someone can reassure me that it's possible Roy, Ike, Azura, Claude, Edelgard and Yuri come back as emblems? 😔
 
Nintendo just release the second trailer already I have so many questions and I'm very very confused at everything. Someone can reassure me that it's possible Roy, Ike, Azura, Claude, Edelgard and Yuri come back as emblems? 😔
Roy and Ike are in the art at the start of the trailer.

Wouldn't personally bet on Yuri being in but Azura, Claude, and Edelgard have good chances imo.
 
Let's be real: IS is gonna milk the hell out of the emblems concept in the DLC, so any [popular] characters not in the base game (which I'm assuming is everyone besides the twelve shown off in the mural at the beginning of the reveal trailer) have a chance at being in the game eventually anyway.
 
If the leak is correct, and considering everything else about it has been true so we have no reason to assume it i's not 100% correct, then this game was originally planned to be an anniversary celebration game that unfortunately missed the mark for the original planned release
I hope Emily/Nate elaborate on this someday. The leak was obviously spot-on, the question remains HOW was this game ever going to be ready for the 30th anniversary just a year after three houses? Was it being developed alongside TH? Did it start off as a smaller project and evolve into something bigger like TOTK? Development reboot like MP4/Pikmin 4?
 
I hope Emily/Nate elaborate on this someday. The leak was obviously spot-on, the question remains HOW was this game ever going to be ready for the 30th anniversary just a year after three houses? Was it being developed alongside TH? Did it start off as a smaller project and evolve into something bigger like TOTK? Development reboot like MP4/Pikmin 4?
It wasn't. Emily even said that Nintendo tends to do anniversary marketing well after the actual anniversary. Speaking of, she also said the game was content complete in August 2021 and in the polish/testing phase until February of this year. Even with potential Covid issues, there is absolutely no way the next big mainline game was meant to release only a year after 3H.
 
Let's be real: IS is gonna milk the hell out of the emblems concept in the DLC, so any [popular] characters not in the base game (which I'm assuming is everyone besides the twelve shown off in the mural at the beginning of the reveal trailer) have a chance at being in the game eventually anyway.
Looking at something like Xenoblade they could put them in a season pass.
 
I hope Emily/Nate elaborate on this someday. The leak was obviously spot-on, the question remains HOW was this game ever going to be ready for the 30th anniversary just a year after three houses? Was it being developed alongside TH? Did it start off as a smaller project and evolve into something bigger like TOTK? Development reboot like MP4/Pikmin 4?
Three Houses was announced for 2018
 
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Yeah, the original plan was "3H in 2018, Engage in 2020". Naturally things didn't go that way, and they didn't go that way for reasons unrelated to Covid considering the timeframe.
 
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Since the Genealogy of the Holy War remake is being handled by IS itself, 3H and Engage delays didn't impact its development and release plan, I think. We could see it in 2024.
 
People think Edelgard discourse will die with a new game but then they'll reveal the villain also has summoning rings and his main summon will be Edelgard.
 
People think Edelgard discourse will die with a new game but then they'll reveal the villain also has summoning rings and his main summon will be Edelgard.
Based on current trends, the main enemy summon is going to be Medeus, surely

Or Camus, now that I think on it
 
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People think Edelgard discourse will die with a new game but then they'll reveal the villain also has summoning rings and his main summon will be Edelgard.
0 problem with that.

But yeah I'd really like to see medeus done well again but I think we're getting gharnef as an evil summon.
 
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